


Everything You Own, Everything You Love

by zenstrike



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, past lotura, swan princess/swan lake retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 03:44:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15064391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Lance is stolen by a witch, and Allura is determined to find him.





	Everything You Own, Everything You Love

    Allura’s horse whinnied in dismay as they skidded to a stop, mud and water flying about them. She could barely hear her own ragged breathing over the storm. Water dripped off her hair and into her eyes.

    The carriage was toppled, the horses gone.

    Her own horse whinnied again. Allura stroked its neck to calm it. She forced herself to take several breaths.

    “Lance,” she breathed.

    She dropped to the ground with a splash. Mud spattered the bottom of her dress. She swallowed.

    “Lance,” she tried again, louder. “Lance!”

    A noise from within the carriage.

    Allura ran towards it and pulled open the dented door with a grunt. In the moonlight, she could see King Alejandro, bent grotesquely and one eye swollen shut.

    “Princess,” he gasped. “The witch—“

    “Your Majesty,” she whispered, reaching for him.

    “The witch,” the king gasped again. He squeezed his good eye shut and sobbed. It shook his whole body. “My son.”

    By the time Allura had hold of him, the last of his breath was gone.

 

* * *

 

    “See you soon?” Lance had said, holding her fingers delicately in one hand.

    “Yes,” Allura had promised and kissed him for the first time in front of her shuffling courtiers and her beaming parents.

    And now he was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

    “Princess,” Romelle said by way of greeting when Allura returned, rain-soaked and exhausted. Her own guard escorted her to the gate and her worn captain helped her from her horse.

    Shiro shook his head, and Romelle sighed.

    “You need rest,” Romelle said and took Allura’s hand.

 

* * *

 

 

    Allura sat to her father’s right, her back straight and eyes clear. At the other end of the table, the Princess Veronica stood with her hands pressed flat against the surface and her eyes squeezed shut with grief.

    “My father is dead,” she was saying. “My little brother—likely dead as well. Do you think your apologies mean much to me, Your Majesty?”

    Veronica, Allura knew, would be made Queen in the days after her return and her mother (Lance’s mother) would be named the Queen Mother as she descended into her mourning.

    “You’re not even in black,” Veronica spat at Allura.

    “Your Highness,” Allura’s father corrected, drawing himself to his full height.

    Allura rose before he could continue. “No,” she replied with a tilt of her chin. She smoothed the front of her blue gown. “He isn’t dead.”

    Veronica opened her eyes—bright blue; the siblings were so much alike—and stared at Allura, her lips pressed into a thin line.

    “Veronica,” Allura said, pleading as she stepped around the table. She couldn’t bring herself to go the full way. She dragged her fingertips against the surface of the dark wood of the table. “I will find him.”

    “Good,” Veronica said with a harsh laugh. “I can bury him. A funeral, instead of a wedding.”

 

* * *

 

 

    Allura’s hunt began.

    “Princess,” Shiro said, following her through the library. “It’s been weeks—“

    She waved him away, pulling books from the shelves and ignoring the exhausted strain of her eyes.

    Veronica was now Queen.

    Lance was still gone.

    The wedding plans collected dust. Flowers and guests would come later, Allura promised herself. Flowers and guests would come with Lance’s laughter.

    A beast. A storm. A scent of fire in the air.

    These were her clues.

 

* * *

 

    “It’s a pity,” the witch was saying in her gravelly voice. “I understand what it is to be a pawn of fate.”

    Lance stood ankle-deep in lakewater and gazed up at the moon. He thought of his father, the crack as his torso spun and his eyes bulged and the scream in Lance’s own throat.

    “I don’t really like birds,” Lance said to the moonlight. He held out his hands to feel it and saw feathers.

    “I’ll free you in time,” the witch promised. When Lance turned, she was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

    “Excellent shot, daughter,” her father said, four months after the Incident.

    Allura lowered her bow. She studied the bullseye. Excellent, yes. Near perfect. She turned.

    “Father,” she greeted with a bow of her head.

    “Allura,” he said and set a warm hand on her shoulder. “I know you need time. However—“

    However, she was a princess on the brink of a decision that had suddenly been torn from her. She had no siblings.

    “Lance is alive,” she muttered and pulled away. “I am going to find him.”

    Her father was quiet. Allura pulled an arrow from the ground.

    “Appease your mother, then.”

    Guest lists for a ball replaced guest lists for a wedding.

 

* * *

 

 

    In the day, Lance flew. He spread his wings and he surveyed the forests and he studied the lake that was his prison from a great, great distance. He avoided hunters.

    When he returned to the lake and moonlight touched his wings, he became himself again in a breath and a stretch of his fingers. He was firmly caught on the ground.

    He dove into the lake and stayed until his limbs became heavy and his lungs screamed.

    The days repeated themselves. The witch visited only to tell him it would be a matter of time. All they needed was for the princess to forget him.

 

* * *

 

 

    Allura dragged her planning out. Or, she asked Romelle to. Her reading continued. Her practice continued. With Shiro at her side, she combed the woods for a sign of Lance, a trace of him.

    “I waited too long,” Allura said, five months after King Alejandro’s death. “I could have had him—“

    Shiro was silent, watching her. Allura hadn’t cried, yet.

    They both looked up as a shadow of wings cut through the late-afternoon beams as they sidled through the tree cover.

    “A swan,” Shiro said, awed.

   

* * *

 

 

    “Why didn’t you kill me?”

    Lance hugged his knees to his chest and felt the lakewater ripple around him. Something shrieked in the night.

    The witch stood at the shore, watching him beneath her hood. Slowly, she straightened and lowered the hood to cast her bright eyes on him. Lance shivered.

    “I have a son,” she said. “You remind me of him.”

    Lance hated her, like he had never hated anyone.

 

* * *

 

 

    In her dreams, Allura remembers balls long past, and Lance young and younger. They dance and he laughs and he makes her laugh. Her eye is caught and he releases her.

    They dance, for years, and finally she returns to him and can’t look away.

    “Lance,” she says in the dreams. “Come back. Come home.”

    He never replies.

 

* * *

 

 

    Seven months.

    “You’ve invited the Emperor?” Allura lowered the list and gazed at her parents.

    Her mother sighed. “A reconciliation isn’t impossible, Allura.”

    “Yes,” Allura replied. “It most certainly is.”

    She turned to the window and stared into the sunlight until it blinded her.

    “My darling,” her mother said. “I know this is difficult.”

    Allura allowed herself to be gathered against her mother’s chest and cried like she hadn’t yet. In the evening, she dressed for dinner in black.

 

* * *

 

 

    “Allura,” Lance called in his swan voice, flying above the trees.

    She looked straight up at him, shielding her eyes with a hand. She was wearing a black riding outfit he had never seen before.

    “Oh no,” he called. “Oh no.”

    Allura looked away. She pulled her bow from her saddle.

    Lance, shrieking in his swan voice, started to run too late.

    Lotor, on the horse next to Allura, laughed. “A swan for our dinner,” he crowed, like he hadn’t betrayed everything Allura believed in just two years before.

    Lance thought about pecking his eyes out, but he had to flee.

 

* * *

 

 

    Allura barrelled through the brush, her breath caught in her lungs and her hair on branches. Her palms were sweaty, clinging to her bow.

    Lotor was long gone behind her.

    She wanted that swan. She wanted this victory, before she was forced to dance with him the next evening and pretend that she was opening herself up to a new marriage when her first hadn’t even had the chance to start.

    What she found was a shimmering lake under moonlight, and a boy with blue eyes and long fingers reaching out to her as he collapsed to his knees.

    “Allura,” Lance said, gripping his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers. He was smiling. “Allura.”

    She screamed.

 

* * *

 

 

    “Go,” he whispered against her lips, pushing her away. “ _Go_. The witch is—she’s—she’s crazy, Allura. Who knows what she’ll do—“

    “Come to the palace tomorrow,” Allura gasped. “There’s a ball—come, and I’ll find a way to break this curse.”

    Lance laughed as he shoved her towards the trees. “I’ll try not to leak feathers everywhere.”

    She had one last glimpse of him, and then she was running.

    Her father and Lotor found her with leaves in her hair and a flush to her cheeks.

    “Where have you been?” her father cried, gathering her into his arms. “We’ve been so worried, daughter.”

    “I tried to catch it,” Allura replied, tears pricking her eyes as she thought of Lance’s wounded shoulder. “I almost did.”

 

* * *

 

    “A transformative curse?” Romelle tapped her chin, then turned to brush her hand against the spines of the books just behind her. “I’m not sure I know any specifics. But, Princess, there’s one thing that always breaks a curse.” She smiled back at Allura.

    Allura frowned. “This isn’t a story, Romelle.”

    Romelle hummed.

 

* * *

 

 

    “There’s one thing that can always turn a curse deadly,” the witch told him, her white hair hanging around her face.

    Lance, trapped with one leg fastened to the ground, could only glare up at her with his black swan eyes.

    “I would have liked you to live,” the witch said. “I would have liked you to go home. But...a mother does what she must.”

    Lance, not for the first time, thought of his father and the witch’s magic tearing them apart.

 

* * *

 

    Lotor was at her side but he hadn’t dazzled her in years. Allura turned to the stairs every chance she had, watching the princes descend through their interactions and the haze of candlelight.

    “Allura?” Lotor said, close to her ear.

    “Excuse me,” Allura replied, and swirled across the ballroom floor in her grand gown.

    Everyone was waiting for her to begin the dancing, she knew, but she was waiting for Lance.

    And then someone dropped their flute of champagne.

    Allura stared straight up.

    “His...His Royal Highness, Prince Lance,” came the announcement.

    Someone shrieked.

    Allura’s heart soared. She bounded up the stairs, her blood pounding in her ears.

    “Lance,” she gasped, holding herself steady against the bannister. “You made it.”

    And he turned to her, his eyes so bright and blue. He looked dashing in red, which had never seemed his colour, but here he was—in the flesh, in the ballroom, and within reach.

    “Anything for you, Princess,” he said and bowed deep.

    Allura knew that there was one thing that could break any curse. She reached for him.

 

* * *

 

    The moment the moonlight had touched him, Lance had torn himself free from his binding with a shout. His fingers bled, his hands ached, and he was running.

    “Okay, fine,” he gasped out as he tore through the woods, catching himself at every stumble. “Just this once I’d like to be a bird!”

 

* * *

 

 

    Lotor felt a hand at his elbow. He turned, and scowled at the worn face of his mother. He looked away.

    “Haggar,” he growled.

    “Lotor,” she said, softly. She hooked their arms together. “I’ve done this for you.”

    Lotor grunted, and watched as Allura kissed the Prince in red.

 

* * *

 

    Lance threw himself from his stolen horse.

    “Prince Lance!” gasped an attendant, catching the reigns. “You’re—“

    “Yeah,” Lance groaned. “Yeah. Where’s Allura?”

    He didn’t wait for an answer, already running up the stairs. Couples on their way to the ball leapt out of his way. Candelight flickered around him.

    He thought of Allura and forced his burning lungs to carry him the rest of the way.

    But as he burst through the doors and caught a glimpse of her, looking magnificent in pink, he froze. He watched her take his face in her hands, watched the smile quirk at her lips.

    “Allura!” he cried, a second too late. She kissed the other him, dressed all in red, and Lance felt it immediately in his chest.

    He collapsed.

 

* * *

 

    Allura pushed Lance from her and studied his smile. Her heart pounded. She could hear shouting.

    “Princess!” Shiro was yelling, as though from far away.

    The Prince in red smiled at her, then vanished beneath her hands into a cloud of dark smoke. Allura coughed, then shrieked as a stark black crow flew towards the ceiling, cawing.

    A curse, she thought. Her vision swam.

    “Princess!” Shiro again. “Princess, it’s—“

    She knew.

    “Lance,” Allura gasped, pushing her way through what was left of the smoke. He was in Shiro’s arms, pale and still. “Lance!”

    “Allura,” Shiro said, shaking. “Allura, he’s—“

    “No,” she whispered and knelt at his side. She took Lance from Shiro’s arms. “No.”

    She prayed to the heavens for a second chance.

 

* * *

 

 

    “We need to leave,” Haggar said in Lotor’s ear. He shivered and pulled away, but she caught his arm in a grip.

    “But Father—“

    “We’ll get him,” Haggar promised and shook her head. “Next time I’ll be stronger for you, Lotor.”

    And they vanished in a breath of wind.

 

* * *

 

    Allura pressed her lips to Lance’s—the real Lance’s, _her_ Lance’s—and held back her tears.

    In her arms, she felt his heart start beating again.

    “The only thing that can break a curse,” Romelle said, hovering behind Shiro. She smiled.

    When Allura looked back down at Lance, he was beaming at her. She brushed a hand over his forehead.

    “You saved me,” he said.

    She clutched him to her chest.

   

 

   

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about ending it closer to Swan Lake than The Swan Princess, but that’s a lot of angst for my heart.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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